India-US trade deal nears finish line, but farmers want to see the fine print. What we know about the deal

New Delhi: India has renewed its assurance that a proposed trade agreement with the United States will protect farmers, as negotiations approach their final stages and agricultural organizations prepare fresh protests. The commerce and industry minister, Piyush Goyal, said the country would secure a competitive advantage without sacrificing sensitive domestic interests, although the interim pact remains unsigned.

Speaking in New Delhi on Thursday, Goyal argued that the agreement’s benefits would become evident once its details were released. “Not a single sensitive interest of our farmers or any stakeholder has been compromised,” he said, defending the negotiations against criticism over the concessions being offered to Washington.

According to the commerce ministry, Goyal said trade agreements should be assessed through their effect on competitiveness and the opportunities they create for complementary economies. He was addressing the fourth national conference on India’s industrial transformation, organized by the Institute for Studies in Industrial Development and the Industrial Development Research Association.

His remarks followed a series of increasingly positive statements from both governments about the negotiations. At the India-Netherlands Business Forum in The Hague on Monday, Goyal said most discussions had concluded and the two countries were refining the agreement.

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, had earlier told Indian Express that negotiations were “weeks, not months” from completion and that 99 per cent of the work had been done. He said the remaining differences involved the meaning of particular words and phrases, while acknowledging that the agreement still required complete convergence.

That optimism has not resolved the concerns of farm organizations, which fear that easier access for subsidized American agricultural products could weaken domestic prices and rural incomes. The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), a coalition of more than 100 farm groups, has demanded fuller disclosure of the terms and plans further demonstrations in November.

The coalition has announced mobilization on November 26, the sixth anniversary of the farmers’ march towards Delhi against the three agricultural laws subsequently repealed by the government. Its wider demands include a legal guarantee for minimum support prices and opposition to trade agreements it considers harmful to agriculture.

What we know about the deal – and what remains unsettled

The negotiations concern an interim agreement within a larger bilateral trade initiative launched on February 13, 2025. The joint framework announced in February outlined the intended exchange of concessions, but left both governments to finalize the agreement and continue negotiations on the broader partnership.

There has since been progress on drafting, alongside continuing negotiations over the terms. On October 15, the commerce secretary, Rajesh Agrawal, said the first phase had been finalized and was undergoing legal drafting, with India seeking preferential market access and greater tariff stability.

The February framework envisaged India eliminating or reducing tariffs on all American industrial goods and several categories of food and agricultural products. The agricultural list included dried distillers’ grains, red sorghum for animal feed, tree nuts, fresh and processed fruit, soyabean oil, wine and spirits, alongside an unspecified category of additional products.

India’s published position is that these concessions do not amount to opening its entire agricultural market. A government background paper issued on February 9 identified dairy, meat, poultry, maize, soyameal, genetically modified food products and several other sensitive categories as protected from concessions.

For some products admitted on easier terms, the government has described a combination of quantity limits, partial duty reductions and gradual tariff elimination. Its background paper listed in-shell almonds, walnuts, pistachios and lentils among products covered by tariff-rate quotas, which allow specified quantities to enter at reduced duties.

The same paper envisaged tariff elimination over as long as ten years for certain intermediate products used by the food-processing industry. These arrangements make the eventual product schedules important: a limited concession within a quota has different implications from unrestricted duty-free entry.

The distinction between raw commodities and processed products is equally significant. The commerce ministry’s published explanation says maize and soyameal are excluded, while limited concessions are contemplated for non-GM red sorghum, specified distillers’ grains and soyabean oil – products that serve different markets but can still affect demand for domestic agricultural output.

This helps explain why the government’s assurances have not ended the dispute. Farm groups are concerned about the effect of the products receiving concessions, even where other major commodities remain protected; the government argues that carefully restricted imports can meet domestic supply gaps without harming producers.

India is also seeking gains for its own agricultural exporters. The February background paper said exports worth $1.36 billion, including tea, coffee, spices and various processed foods, would receive zero additional US duty, a formulation that should be distinguished from exemption from every applicable customs charge.

For industrial exporters, the February framework proposed an 18 per cent US reciprocal tariff on several Indian product categories and the removal of that tariff from selected goods upon successful conclusion of the interim agreement. However, subsequent changes in the US tariff landscape, including a Supreme Court ruling against the administration’s reciprocal tariffs, prompted further negotiations, making the February figures an incomplete guide to the eventual arrangement.

The negotiations also extend beyond customs duties to regulatory barriers, technology trade and commercial sourcing. India has expressed an intention to purchase $500 billion in American energy products, aircraft and aircraft parts, precious metals, technology products and coking coal over five years, while both sides have proposed closer cooperation on supply chains and digital trade.

For now, the public record establishes the broad framework, the government’s stated agricultural exclusions and the continuing work on a final text. The unresolved test is whether the published agreement, its product schedules and implementation rules substantiate those assurances sufficiently to address farmers’ concerns.